FicWad

A/N: Okay, so this is yet another huge mountain of fluff...just a warning to all of you folks who'd rather read about Gerard Way going to go kill himself 'cause Frank Iero doesn't love him or some crap like that. Hehehehehe...

Disclaimer: I do not own the lyrics to "Automatic".

Song Used: Weezer's "Automatic".

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Thirty-Two: Automatic
Puppet: Cormac O'Kane

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How am I going to,
Deliver you a mountain size of love?
How do oceans,
Connected by a straw get something through?

There were times when I said, “I love you” and it just didn't seem like it was enough. It was like I was only barely scratching the very surface of the way I felt for her; like there was so much more to it than that.

I did love her, yes, but that wasn't all.

I wanted her. I craved her smile; the sound of her voice; her touch; the smell of her clothes; the taste of her skin When she wasn't around, I ached to feel her presence. When she was in the other side of the room, I yearned to be by her side. When she stood next to me, I wanted to hold her hand. When she slipped her fingers through the spaces in between my own, I wanted to hold her. When she wrapped her arms around my neck, I wanted to kiss her. Everything she did, whether it was as small as air-drumming when she listened to her music and thought no one was watching, or as big as spontaneously deciding that I looked like I needed a kiss in a crowded public place, drew me to her like a powerful magnet.

I needed her. I felt physically ill when she was gone for long periods of time, often times falling prey to an irritating, dry cough that mysteriously, miraculously tended to evaporate as soon as I saw her again. Also, though perhaps it was a mere side effect of the cough itself, I tended to fall into a depressed funk, during which I had no desire to do anything, even the things that I loved the most. I would pass by the basketball courts without giving them a second thought, whereas normally I would ask one of the local teams if I could join them. I would pick up my guitar and absently strum the strings, whereas normally I would've savored every single clear note I created. I would gaze dully at the walls of my kitchen and not move at all, even if I was starving, whereas normally I would've had the uncontrollable urge to start making something whether I was hungry or not.

I wanted to tell her all about that, but it all sounded so fake, like something from a storybook or a movie. Life wasn't like that. I couldn't help but think that normal guys weren't like that when they were in love with a girl, and maybe I shouldn't feel like that at all. Was there such a thing as too much devotion?

She would never believe me, anyway. She may think she did and tell me that she did; tell me that I was sweet and that she loved me too the way she always did, but she wouldn't really think that I was that hopeless for her. She was a human being, faulty and imperfect, as was I; there was no such thing as the perfect love I described. Or, at least, there wasn't supposed to be.

No, she would never believe me. Unless I could figure out a way to show her.

But that was impossible. There was nothing I could do; no gifts thoughtful enough, no hugs tender enough, no kisses passionate enough to communicate the overwhelmingly strong attachment I had to her. It was like trying to fit a camel through the eye of a needle; drink up the ocean through a tiny little straw; move a mountain with a forklift.

I might need some time to remember,
Need some time to remember...

Nostalgic creature that I was, I found myself sitting at my computer looking through the vast number of pictures we'd saved over the years. I clicked on the first file and a slide show quickly popped up on the screen, the first picture being one of twelve-year-old Paige and I outside, laughing at something off camera.

I flipped through the pictures with a soft smile in remembrance, even though I didn't recall when all the pictures were taken or what we'd been laughing at in some of them. These were probably one of the earliest pictures we had of us together, as I met her only shortly after her mom and older brother died, which had been when she was twelve.

I tried the next file. More smiling, laughing faces. Two birthdays. A couple of basketball games.

On the third file, which would've been when we were around fourteen years old, I noticed that some things had changed. Paige's face became sharper and my hair got a little curlier. There were more people in the background. I wasn't smiling as big as I had been in the other photographs.

Fourth. Sharper face. Curlier hair. More people. A lackluster smile. A school dance. Choir outfits.

I didn't like looking at those pictures. I knew the real reason why I hadn't been grinning like the little boy like I had been in the first two. That had been around the time that my step-dad started to beat me when I came home. I skipped over to our wedding pictures, hoping they would raise my spirits.

They did, and one image in particular caught my attention.

In it, a young man and an equally young woman were sitting together on a large, neutral-colored couch inside a well-lit, cozy looking room. He was dressed in a smart black tuxedo and his short, dark curls framed his face like a lion's mane, while she was in a snugly fit dress as white as freshly fallen snow, contrasting drastically with her raven hair. His arm was protectively wrapped about her shoulders and they were sharing a soft nuzzle. Neither was looking at the camera; their eyes, half-closed and only seen from the side, saw only each other. The smile they were sharing was one of sheer contentment, the warmth radiating from their eyes was so loving, their mingled touch was so obviously gentle and adoring...

I felt my heart flutter gently at the complete perfection of the tender moment. I hadn't known anyone had been taking our picture then, but I was glad it had happened.

Interesting, isn't it, that a photograph, which is meant to take a single frame of life frozen and make it immortal, made me realize that it was the little things that made up the big picture when it came to love?

I didn't need to find one big thing to show her just how much I loved her. It was the little things, the things I did automatically, the things I did without thinking...

I glanced absently at the clock in the bottom right hand corner of the screen. 9:30pm, I read, good. She'll be expecting me up there soon, anyway.

Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you know it,
Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you feel it...

I looked fondly at the image for a few seconds longer. I wasn't sure about her, but our wedding day had probably been the best day of my life. We'd been married, happily and peacefully, for almost a year now and I still had a hard time believing that I'd been lucky enough to have the girl I'd loved for years already promise to spend the remainder of her life with me.

Recently, though, my job as an architect had made it so I wasn't able to give her much of my time, hence my reason for wanting to show her a little extra love to make up for the time we'd lost. It seemed like everyday now that I had do spend a lot of my free time down in the basement with my drawing board or sitting in front of the computer studying the blueprints that seemed to have a problem with them.

I didn't mind working, actually. I'd always had an interest in creating things; music on my guitar, food in my kitchen, art in my sketchbook. The way I saw it, I'd spent a vulnerable part of my life being beaten down, so now it was my turn to help build things back up. It was unbelievably satisfying to know that I was building not only homes for other people, but security for my wife and I as well.

She was a high school Spanish teacher now, and a young one at that. There were days when she came home talking excitedly about one of the kids in her classes, and I would laugh with her. Other days, she was so tired that I had to carry her up to bed, just like I had when we were dating.

Those memories made me smile, too.

I closed the document, shut off the computer for the night, stood up and stretched, my muscles stiff from sitting in one place for too long. I chuckled softly to myself on the way toward the staircase, wondering how I could've been so nearsighted that I hadn't thought of the simple explanation to my predicament sooner.

My footsteps were slow and easygoing as I ascended up the steps, and the handrail creaked slightly the way it always did when someone as heavy as I was took hold of it. The stairs creaked too, but I did my best to tune that out and center my attention on listening for any signs of life in our room. Was she grading something? Getting ready for bed? Already there?

Was she even upstairs at all?

I paused once I came into the doorway, my breath catching slightly in my throat at what I saw. She was in there, all right; she was in her pajamas, laying on our bed on her stomach with her ankles crossed above her head, a pencil in hand and looking intently at something in front of her.

She looked so young, so carefree, just like the teenage girl I'd fallen in love with all those years ago. So beautiful...

I leaned up against the door post and crossed my legs, watching her. I started to think about the right words to say, the right things to do...but then I shook my head. I needed to be genuine. Automatic.

When do I lay down,
And get to see the world inside your eyes?
How can I reach out,
And hold on to the joy you've got inside?

“You can come in,” she said with a little laugh, not looking up from whatever it was that she was doing, “it's your room too, ya' know.”

I smiled, a small bout of laughter of my own coming up from deep inside my chest as I straightened up and came toward her. “How do you do that?”

She smiled impishly, but not for a second did she look up from her paper, which I now realized was a drawing of the ash gray cat that was sleeping soundly beside her. I had thought for a moment that it was a paper of some sort and she was grading it, and the clumsy artwork was a welcome change of pace. “Do what? Catch you staring?” she asked, “It's not hard.”

I sat down on the space on her other side, the mattress sinking down a few inches now that it had the weight of three bodies instead of just two light ones. I wished she would look up at me, but I didn't say so. It was better to just be natural and let her come to me, after all. “Striking likeness,” I commented, reaching over her and gently rubbing the velvety ears of our slumbering pet, “I'm sure if she was awake Sage would appreciate it.”

Almost as if she had known what I was thinking, Paige turned to face me, her big blue eyes shining with delight at the compliment. “You really think so?”

I smiled. I was an artist myself and she had often times said she wished to could draw like I did, so I was sure that getting praise like that from me meant a lot. “Yeah.”

Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you know it,
Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you feel it...

She too, reached over to stroke Sage, her hand brushing against my own. “Thanks, Mac.” She purred as if she was a cat as well, before her expression became thoughtful and questioning. “What took you so long to come up?”

Sage's bright amber eyes flicked open, awakened by the two soft hands brushing against her fur. The Russian Blue's tail started to flick back and forth, but she made no effort to move, a hearty purr rattling up from her throat.

The smile on Paige's face made my heart flutter. She was just such a happy girl, and I realized that I could have that too. “I was just looking at some pictures,” I answered, making the transition from Sage's fur to Paige's skin by taking her hand in mine and rubbing the back of it softly with my thumb, “I found one of us you might like.”

She pushed herself up so she was sitting on her legs, a movement that caused Sage to jump off the bed and stalk out of the room. She smiled childishly and I saw the universe.

Got some,
I wanna feel it every hour,
'Cause I wanna get into you...

“Was it the one from your seventeenth birthday? After I put whipped cream in your hair?”

I laughed, recalling the moment rather well even if it hadn't been the one I was thinking of. She had told me over and over that my gift was some sort of surprise and I'd pestered her about it all day, only to receive a large blob of fluffy white cream and a 'present' I'd never forget. “No,” I replied after the laughing fit was over, “from our wedding. Someone caught us cuddling.”

Paige closed her eyes with a smile still in place, looking very satisfied. “Oh, that one. I figured it was only a matter of time 'till you found it.”

I blinked at her in complete confusion. She had known about that? How could she possibly know which one out of the hundreds I was talking about? It wasn't as if she spent several minutes a day looking at picture the way I did; how was it that she knew about it and I didn't? “You've seen it?”

“Of course!” she said, bringing her free hand around to pat my cheek as if she was a mother chiding a small, silly child, “It's the one where we're on the couch, right?”

I cocked my head at one side at her, deciding that it was better to just let things go on autopilot. There was no need to think. If I listened too much to my head it made it far too difficult to listen to my heart; the part of me that allowed me to feel so strongly for the girl of my dreams. “Yeah,” I replied, inching my face a little closer, gently touching my nose to hers, “that's the one.”

She hooded her eyes and smirked a little, as if she knew some great big secret that I didn't. “Cute picture, isn't it?”

I hummed my agreement huskily, softly rubbed my nose against her cheek and thirstily drinking in her sweet smell. Can you feel this too? 'Cause I've always felt like this when I'm with you, I thought to myself, always. I don't know how to explain it. No matter how I've felt before, it just happens.

She returned the gesture, her lips brushing against my cheek as she spoke up again. “What was that, babe?” she teased with a flirty tinge in her tone, “I couldn't hear you.”

God, I wanted to kiss her. I wrapped my arm around her and laid my hand in the middle of her back, then gently pushed her down so she was laying flat on the sheets, still nuzzling her face. “Yes,” I murmured breathlessly, “I said yes.”

“Kiss me, won't you?” She asked, her voice hardly above a whisper.

I automatically complied.

Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you know it,
Hey yeah!
It's automatic when you feel it.

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A/N: I actually really liked writing this one, even though I'm not quite sure if I nailed the meaning of this song. Mac is really cute, isn't he? Though I'm starting to feel like maybe Paige is becoming a bit of a Mary-Sue character...